


my best friend's wedding

by redandgold



Series: banterville [5]
Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: M/M, prolly the laziest thing i've ever written lmao i AHAVENT EVEN READ THRU IT AGAIN, this is what u get when i start working
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 08:28:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11986038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: "I met both Gary and Carragher the same way I meet everyone: intensely disliking them."





	my best friend's wedding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blindbatalex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/gifts).



> for alex, who asked for this aaaaaages ago!

"So, uh."

Scholesy squints at the paper in his hand and wishes for the hundredth time that a) he'd practiced this more and b) he didn't have handwriting as fucking tiny as himself.

"I met both Gary and Carragher the same way I meet everyone: intensely disliking them."

"You didn't intensely dislike me," Phil says, hurt, and Scholesy kicks him under the table.

"The dislike for Carragher, obviously, stemmed from his links to what I still consider is the worst club on Earth. And no, contrary to popular belief, that is not Louis van Gaal's United. The dislike for Gary came from his being far too loud. Idiot defenders shouting loudly while you're trying to score are an immense turn off. Good luck with your sex life, by the by."

He has the immense satisfaction of seeing the both of them turn red. If all goes well, his never-ask-me-to-be-best-man-again plan will be the best thing he's ever accomplished, and that includes trying to punch Xabi Alonso.

"That being said, Gary's one of my best friends, and has been for years. This is primarily a self-motivated friendship where string him along for when I can't be arsed to speak. Which suits him fine, really; I remember being in the press office once when Gary called them to complain about the latest articles. Diane, the press officer, picked up the phone with a miserable, long-suffering expression I recognised in the haunted faces of Arsenal fans. She told me he did this every morning and asked whether I wanted to go for breakfast. When I asked if he'd notice, she said that it didn't matter, since the only time he ever stopped talking was when he physically had to breathe. Diane's sitting at table 5, Gary, in case you want to settle the score later."

Diane looks mortified. In fairness, so does Gary. Carragher is laughing like an idiot, which makes the next bit particularly satisfying. Scholesy swears he isn't just a pillar of salt, as much as he – and everybody else – sometimes thinks he is.

Most of the time.

"Carragher, meanwhile, I first met in 1999, when he was just breaking into the Liverpool first team. I was soon struck by his big heart and generosity, characteristics which have been present in him throughout his life. His graciousness was immediate apparent as he gifted Gary and I two goals to welcome us to his humble abode during the derby."

Gary snorts with an inappropriate amount of glee and Carragher looks murderous. Considering how Gary had made him promise not to make any jokes about Liverpool during what he called the Courtship Period (a term almost as old as the manager himself), Scholesy just thinks of this as his fee.

"It's fair to say that Gary and Carragher didn't like each other from the moment they met. Gary didn't like any Scouser, as a matter of principle, and Carragher was much the same with Mancs. Carragher, however, was soon to realise that being a Manc didn't stop one from possessing a fine booty, and our Gaz had one such specimen firmly tacked onto his behind. Carragher would also soon realise that while he might have been adept at many things, like yelling unnecessarily and partying in Ibiza, being able to look longingly at someone without being blatantly obvious was not one of these things.

"While Carragher was grappling with his inner demons and trying to excuse an inexcusable sin, Gary was blissfully unaware, more preoccupied as he was with being injured and claiming a Champions' League trophy he hadn't won. Or broken a nose for. And before you complain that I didn't play in the '99 final, Gaz, I didn't spend the campaign on the sidelines eating MacDonald's."

"I didn't eat MacDonald's _every_ day," Gary mutters to the manager, who is looking at him while radiating vague judgement.

"Having ungracefully retired after a disaster of a performance at West Brom, on a scale only equalled some years later by another Northern, red captain – " Scholesy smiles politely in the direction of the offender, who raises a good natured – he thinks – middle finger in reply. "Gary then went into the corporate world, where Sky were grateful to have captured the biggest revelation in punditry since Jamie Redknapp first said a sentence that didn't misuse the word 'literally'. They were so grateful that they gave him enough money to sustain his pasty habit, which was a big relief for his previous sponsor's bank account."

He pats his pockets to illustrate his point. They might be laughing, he thinks darkly, but they didn't have to buy so many pasties that the Olde Pasty Shoppe owner knows them better for his patronage than their football.

"Two blissful years spent with Ed – Chamberlin, not Woodward, although I have a sneaking suspicion that we wouldn't have a tree on the team if that had panned out – were duly interrupted by the arrival of a rank outsider, completely out of his depth and with absolutely no understanding of what a top club was. And as if David Moyes was not enough, Jamie Carragher had joined poor Gary at Sky.

"It was to be the worst year of his life, the one where he was immortalised as England's worst ever foreign manager excepted. But we'll get on to that. Having thought that he had gotten away from, quote, the loudest, twattiest Scouser he'd ever had the displeasure of interacting with, unquote, Gary now had to work with him. It's too late, Carragher, you've married the loudest, twattiest Manc. Deal with it.

Gary was surprisingly accommodating towards Carragher, an attitude that dumbfounded those of us who knew him and had already prepared contingency plans in the case of having to cover up a murder. Incidentally, Phil's plan was watching all seasons of How To Get Away With Murder, at the end of which the only thing he offered up was _Wes shouldn't have died._ Spoiler alert."

"WELL HE SHOULDN'T HAVE," Phil cries indignantly. He's named one of the frogs after him. It's all very complicated.

"Luckily for the both of them, Carragher had already been heart-eyeing Gary for the longest of times, and Gary, in turn, was mollified, if slightly unsettled. By 'slightly' I meant that he called me multiple times at ungodly hours in the morning, forcing me through analyse the semantics of what were some painfully obvious – sometimes just plain painful – text messages."

"You showed them to _Scholes_?" Carragher hisses at Gary, who puts his face in his hands.

"The whole process took many, many, _many_ rounds of will-they-won't-they, culminating in Gary's emotional awakening from his Northern repression slash English guilt – not as easy a task as he would have you think, and involving a disproportionate amount of using Giggsy and Butty to demonstrate certain… concepts."

Ryan wiggles his eyebrows. Gary continues to hold his face in his hands.

"After we'd all been scarred for life and Gary had finally come to realise that emotions were an actual thing that people felt for other people and not football clubs, drama intervened in the form of a Spanish club that I shall not here name to spare blushes. Valencia is playing very well for United, isn't he, Gaz?"

"Fuck off," Gary mutters.

"But, happily, everything came together in the end and our two star-crossed lovers were reunited in a shower of renewed clinginess. The advent of Instagram heralded the popularising of their relationship, and you can view the gallery of sickeningly sappy portraits online, although if you have a strong aversion to saccharine public displays of affection or are Mike Pence I would firmly urge you not to. By the end of 2017 practically everyone was clamouring for them to:

  1. take each other's stick, and not in a bantery sense, either;
  2. get a room, preferably soundproof;
  3. just fuck already.



"The proposal was as romantic as only Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher could make it, involving much football, many disaster, and such bad knees. And here we are today, very much older, none the wiser, and still as much of twats as twenty years ago."

Scholesy raises his glass and turns to face them properly, now. “Now, uh. Listen." He swallows and nervously digs his thumb against the flesh of his index finger, trying not to throw up or anything of the sort. Sap is something better left to rubber trees than him. "Gary – you're my best mate. Even if you're banging a Scouser. And, uh. I'm glad that someone's there to make you smile, even if he is a Scouser. Because after all the shit you've been through – oi, Becks – it's just. Really nice seeing you happy."

Gary beams at him. For a moment he looks very much like Phil and the effect is unsettling; Scholesy thinks he can only deal with one Neville who resembles being smacked in the face with a puppy every day, let alone two.

"Carragher. I hope you know that if you ever fuck Gaz over you are going to join the bodies of my other victims. For what it's worth, though, you don't seem like the sort to. I've seen how you take care of Gary and how much you love your club, and as much as I hate to admit it, you're – actually alright."

Carragher gives him a slight, lopsided grin, raises his glass in salute. Scholesy finds it a little in himself to smile back.

"To Gary and Jimmy. May they not kill each other by the first derby."

"To Gary and Jimmy," everyone echoes, except Jimmy, who mutters that that's worse than being called James.

Scholesy makes a note of that.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little bit I wrote up in between, uh, meetings. DONT TELL THE BOSS :/ 
> 
> I didn't actually do any research for this (w O W big deal) but everything referenced, off the top of my head, is accurate, e.g. Gary and macdonalds / the Ecuador photo of carra pining / people on twitter asking 'who takes the stick'.
> 
> Maybe I'll do the actual wedding, maybe not. who knos ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
